10 Miles above Ground Level

Tag Archives: Charonite

By which I mean, I’ve spent three months moving into my new flat, enjoying christmas and then looking for the cable to plug my camera into my computer.

So I have a bunch of stuff to show off!

The New Flat

I have a new Games Room and hobby desk on which to play and work at home rather than relying on a 30 minute trek into town to do anything. It’s worked wonders on my hobby!

Once the table was set up, I immediately invited some friends to have a game with me, we wound up having a three-sided 3000 points apiece battle. Orks vs Chaos Marines vs 30k Mechanicum.
A grand success with chinese takeaway and beer! I was able to snap a fair few photos over that battle but very few were clear shots of the table without blur.. ah well.
Behold the battlefield!

Warlord Titan

I bought my Warlord Titan!
Previously I only had one gun and the head, the rest of the parts arrived shortly after christmas and I was delighted to be able to take some pictures…

“What have I gotten myself into?”

That’s a LOT of parts..

I’m going to get this thing framed…the reaver’s certificate too.

Since these pictures were taken, I’ve partially assembled the torso of the titan

To my minor annoyance, it turns out I hadn’t quite been thorough enough cleaning the parts, so I’ll be going back over these parts to make doubly sure.
That’s the trouble with such large components…
For the curious, the unpainted circle on the side of the chassis is where I had placed another model (with its round base) on the part during spraying.
That whole area is going to be under the shoulder anyway so I figured it didn’t much matter.

Amazingly, the carapace is actually large enough to drive a tank over…

In any case, now I’ve got my camera and photobooth set up again, I’ll be updating my blog a LOT more frequently. and with that, I’ll have a lot more impetus to work on the warlord. I’m thinking I’ll dedicate saturday entirely to it.
I won’t leave the house that day. Hoping to get a lot done!

Dark Mechanicum Acolytes

I had a LOT of fun with these, I’ve been slowly building a collection of Daemon Engines for most of the time I’ve had this blog, so long-time readers know exactly what I’m talking about…
I figured it was time I made some infantry to go with the monsters.
But not just any old cultists or marines would do, they’d have to be something dark, gribbly and John Blanchian.
So I turned to my bits box and some spare dark eldar parts…
I hope you’ll agree that the results speak for themselves!

I’m still painting the back three, but the two with their bases done are complete.

I’ve been working on tentative rules, but the basic idea is that these are a Retinue or can take the role of squad-leader for cultists and traitor-skitarii.
They’re highly upgradeable but basically not designed to stand alone. you -can- give them all plasma guns and field them as mobile special weapons teams, or attach them to the cultists as a major bonus to leadership and other bonuses depending on wargear.

Their secondary role is to be used alongside a Heretek Magos to beef out his power and provide a bodyguard.
To make them, I primarily used Dark Eldar Wracks and Skitarii Ruststalkers as parts-sources. some bits and bobs (mostly servo-skulls and the plasma gun) from other kits too.

Next up, the Magos. I’ve picked up the Everchosen Gaunt Summoner, I think I can get some interesting results by adding DEldar and Admech parts to him…

30k Mechanicum

Running alongside everything else, I went to the Horus Heresy Tournament in Nottingham a couple weeks ago. I had a fantastic time (even though I was the bottom of the league) and I’m definitely going again in june/july

However in preparation, I spent some time prepping my army, so now every single model is fully based and painted.
I built a Macrocarid Explorator using the Land Raider Proteus kit, since my existing Mechanicum Land Raider was no longer part of the army list. Happy to report that it was only destroyed once in the five games I played at the tournament.

I also built and painted a Knight Atrapos.

I’ll post pictures of both the Macrocarid and Atrapos in my next post (probably tomorrow evening)

General lessons learned in the tournament; Mechanicum are okay at melee, but benefit from using the right units for it.
I was fielding my Magos as a Malagra (melee assault specialist) with a unit of Ferrox type Thallaxii. The Rage special rule was meant to make them a lot more lethal, but in practice I never really got to take advantage of it properly.
I also learned that I really REALLY need more tech thralls and transports.
So at some stage I’ll be buying some Triaros transports.

My feeling is that the Ferrox was largely wasted, so I’ve purchased some Scyllax guardian automata to fill the role. uncertain how they’ll mesh with my army since I normally field my Magos with a jetpack. perhaps they’ll play nice with her if I remove the jetpack and replace it with something else…

Solar Auxilia

I actually got a game against the solar auxilia while I was at the tournament, my first proper encounter with them. My previous meetings were when they were attached as allies to a Sons of Horus army so I never really got a sense for what they were good at.

As I’m sure my dear readers are aware, I’m aiming to build a Solar Auxilia army and currently have a command squad/legate-commander, Storm Section and an Arvus Lighter built for them.
After the tournament was over, I bought Book 4 and a pack of Ogryn Charonites to really kick off my army.

I adore the charonite models. They go together with a nice snug fit on all parts and no messing around with bending anything, even those pipes are the right shape to fit as long as you use the correct numbered parts!
They’re also big, a Lot bigger than you might think.
Guard players may be mislead about their size by comparing them to 40k era ogryns.
These are not your regular ogryn in a space suit, they’ve been gene-bulked and given augmetic surgeries. they’re a LOT scarier. They are to 40k ogryns what 40k ogryns are to guardsmen.

I mean wow, they make regular ogryns look puny!

This Ogryn isn’t finished yet, still quite a bit to do on him, but you get the idea of how I’m painting them. The vibrant orange is very striking, I’m having a great time with this army so far!
Hoping when I get to the infantry tercios I won’t get so bogged down I lose the sense of fun with them.

Imperial Assassins

Some may recall my previous posts in which I showed off my Culexus and Callidus assassins?
Well, the new models showed up and I decided I liked the look of the eversor and vindicaire more than my own rough attempts. So I went ahead and bought them.

Nothing much to say, I’ve painted them with the same style as my previous models and I’m very pleased with the results.
Special mention goes to the vindicaire’s glowing eyes and blended camoleoline suit.